Topic: Advisor Resources

Focus on Compliance: Expatriates

Multinational corporations frequently transfer employees to work in foreign countries for extended periods. Expatriation raises questions regarding the employee’s status as a participant in the company’s non-qualified deferred compensation plan. Legislation adopted in 2008 (the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Tax Relief Act) may also require that deferred compensation benefits be included in income on the expatriation date.

Investment Manager Due Diligence Process

Newport Group believes that investment managers should be selected and monitored using a well-defined process. Our dedicated team of research analysts combines both quantitative analysis and qualitative research in order to identify investment managers we believe will provide superior long-term performance.

Tax Reform: A Deeper Dive into Amended Section 162(m)

This article addresses recent tax law developments affecting non-qualified deferred compensation plans sponsored by publicly traded corporations and non-public organizations that are required to file statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Federal Reserve Board Releases Stress-Test Scenarios for 2018

Thirty-eight of the largest banking institutions in the United States will be subject to the Federal Reserve’s 2018 Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) – up from 34 in 2017.

Focus on Compliance: Applying Non-Qualified Plan Deferral Elections to the Final Payroll Period for the Year

Under Code Section 409A, an annual salary deferral election generally applies to all salary earned during the calendar year. If this concept were to apply to salary earned during the last payroll period of the year that crosses into the next year, human resources would need to  identify the salary earned on or before December 31 and the salary earned after December 31, apply the appropriate deferral elections to each portion, (iii) communicate the two components of deferred compensation to the plan’s record keeper in order to assign the appropriate payment schedule to each portion and then (iv) communicate the combined deferral amount to payroll for processing.

Non-Qualified Plan Distributions: State Income Tax Sourcing Rules

Are distributions from Non-Qualified Deferred Compensation Plans subject to state income "source" tax (i.e. can the state in which the income was earned impose its state income tax on the distributions from the plan, even though the recipient resides in a different state when reeicing the distribution)? The answer is "yes" unless the distribution meets one of two requirements.

The Key Employee Six-Month Rule and its Application to Public Company Sponsors of NQDC Plans

Public companies sponsoring non-qualified deferred compensation plans are subject to a special rule that requires payments to certain employees (called "specified employees" in IRC 409A) to be delayed for six-months following a seperation from service. This summary is intended to assist sponsors in developing administrative procedures for compliance with this special rule.

The Case for Active and Passive Management

Passive investment options continue to grow in popularity and now represent approximately 40% of total equity fund assets1. They are efficient at providing broad exposure to a number of asset classes at a low cost. Active investing provides the potential for higher returns, but at the risk of underperformance, particularly during extended bull markets. Active management benefits from risk oversight and may provide downside protection relative to market benchmarks. We expect the performance of active and passive managers to be complementary over a full market cycle. Retirement plan sponsors that offer a diversified menu of active and passive managers to participants may provide smoother long term returns, as well as gain exposures to asset classes that are otherwise unavailable passively.


 

Correcting a Failure to File the DOL Top Hat Exemption Letter

Top hat retirement plans (unfunded arrangement that benefit a "select group of management or highly compensated employees" and more commonly known as "Non-Qualified deferred compensation plans") are exempt from most of the requirnment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended ("ERISA"), including the obligation to file annual information returns with the IRS on Form 5500.

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